


Legacy

by 888mph



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Altered Mental States, Canonical Character Death, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Hurt Stiles, Mental Health Issues, Stilinski Family Feels, Suicide, fighting couples, implied sort-of-canon suicide attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-05
Updated: 2014-04-05
Packaged: 2018-01-18 07:43:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1420081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/888mph/pseuds/888mph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beacon Hills is a small town. Everyone knows about deputy Stilinski's wife and the horrible disease that's going to cut her life short.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Legacy

**Author's Note:**

> After Riddled therealallecto and I had an interesting discussion about how much Claudia must have suffered, especially with a child as young as Stiles. This fic came out of that discussion.
> 
> PLEASE pay attention to the tags! They're warnings. If you think I should add more, please tell me in the comments.
> 
> After reading this, one of my betas sent me the following message: "Also, FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU SO HARD! I WAS NEARLY IN FUCKING TEARS! DJFDK;JJSDAFJJKFSJDFJSADFJKLASDLKF JESUS CHRIST ON A CRACKER, JO! WHAT THE FUCK." Consider yourselves warned.
> 
> Beta-ed by Prussie and Abbreviation.
> 
> I'M SO SORRY! Next week I'll start posting a multiple-chaptered Mpreg fic, with happy!Stiles and babies and happy endings. I'm sorry!!!

**CLAUDIA**

It's been a fun night, Claudia thinks to herself. John had a night shift and Claudia hadn't felt like making dinner, so she'd taken Stiles out for burgers.

Nothing makes her kid happier than curly fries.

After dinner, they saw that the gate to the swings near the parking lot was open, so they're both on the swings, trying to see who reaches higher. Stiles is sure that if he tries hard enough, he'll be able to make a full turn.

Claudia laughs. She hadn't been on a swing since John had taken her out on their first date, and she's just incredibly happy she's here now with their son.

"Wee!" Stiles yells, jumping from his seat and landing on his butt on the sand.

"Stiles!" Claudia stops her swing and scrambles to where her son is lying on the ground. She sighs in relief when she sees the look of sheer happiness and he giggles. "Get off the ground, you silly goose. You'll fill the jeep with sand," she says, laughing when Stiles starts making sand angels and grins at her.

Stiles jumps to his feet, pats his clothes, managing to spread more sand around than actually cleaning them, and hugs her.

"You're the best mom in the world," he says, looking up at her, huge eyes full of wonder.

"And you're the best son in the world," she tells him. And isn't that the truth? Looking down at this little boy wrapped around her waist, Claudia feels a love spreading through her, a kind of overwhelming sentiment that makes her choke before she's able to articulate it. She can only show it.

"I wish this day would never end," Stiles mutters into her coat.

"And if it didn't end?"

Stiles looks at her bemused.

"What if we went on a road trip?" she asks, taking Stiles' hand and walking them towards the jeep.

Stiles' eyes light up, but then he frowns.

"And what about dad?"

"Dad is working now, but when we get there, we'll call him and he'll meet us there." Claudia can feel Stiles vibrating with excitement through their linked hands, and if she's going to be honest with herself, that's exactly how she feels, too.

"And where's there?"

"Hmm," Claudia says, pretending to think. She has to bite the inside of her cheek to hide her glee. "How about Disneyland?"

She's pretty sure the squeal Stiles gives can break glass.

"Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod," Stiles screams, jumping around her. "We're going to Disneyland?"

Claudia nods and she's grinning so much at Stiles' happiness, her cheeks are starting to hurt.

"And it's open?" he asks, climbing into the jeep.

“Well, if it isn't yet when we arrive, we'll camp at the door until it opens." Claudia has no idea how long it takes to reach Anaheim, nor at what time do the doors at Disneyland open, but there shouldn't be any problem. "It's going to be fun!"

Stiles nods so much, his head looks like it's going to fall off.

"Buckle up," Claudia says, starting up the jeep.

~~~~~~~~

"3, 498 bottles of beer on the wall, 3, 498 bottles of beer," they sing, disturbingly off-key. Stiles came up with this version when he was learning numbers. John put a stop at 5, 999 bottles of beer, but it's great to keep Stiles occupied during long roadtrips. The kid really is into singing the whole thing. "You take one down, you pass it around, 3, 497 bottles of beer on the wall!"

And then the jeep dies.

"Mom?"

Claudia turns the key in the ignition to no avail and that's when she notices it: the tank is empty.

"It's okay, sweetie," she says, trying to keep her voice steady. "Apparently I forgot to feed the jeep, too. Let's call dad, yeah?"

Stiles nods.

"And dad we'll take us to Disneyland?"

"Of course he will." Claudia smiles reassuringly at Stiles. She dials John's numbers and listens, waiting for him to pick up.

_”Claudia?”_

And that's when the battery of the cellphone dies.

"You've got to be kidding me," she says, staring in disbelief at the dark screen. "So, new plan," she says, turning around to face her son. The jeep's clock is permanently frozen at 2:30 am, and she doesn't wear a watch, preferring to check the time on her cellphone, so she has no idea how long it passed since they left Beacon Hills at around 10 pm. But they can't be that far away from Santa Rosa, right, where there are gas stations open 24/7? "We're going to walk to the nearest gas station and get fuel for the car, okay?"

"No!" Right on clue a coyote yaps in the distance and Stiles cowers in his seat.

"Stiles, they're more afraid of us than we are of them," Claudia says. "And we need to fill the gas tank or we'll never get to Disneyland."

"I want to go home," Stiles whimpers. I don't want to go to Disneyland anymore!"

Claudia slams her fist on the steering wheel, making the car honk, anger rising inside her.

"How can you be so ungrateful?" she yells. “I planned this trip to make you happy, so your perfect night wouldn't end! And now you tell me you want to go home? Are you--"

She stops. Stiles is curled up in the backseat, hands over his head, looking at her with huge eyes full of tears. He's shaking, and judging by the blueish tint in his lips, it's more than the coyotes that sound much closer now.

"Baby, I'm sorry!" Claudia climbs to the backseat and reaches for Stiles' hands, that are freezing. Stiles whimpers and tries to shy away from her. She wanted to make him happy, to show him how much she loves him, and now he's afraid of her. She'd dragged her little boy out in the night and then yelled at him for being scared, cold and tired. What the hell is wrong with her?

"Stiles, baby, I'm so sorry." She takes out her coat and wraps it around Stiles, pulling him to her lap, so she can hold him like she did when he was little. "Please don't cry, baby, I'm so sorry."

"Okay," Stiles hiccups, wiping his eyes and leaning against her.

"We're going to stay here, okay? And we're going to wait for dad to find us, yeah? He'll find us, he's a hero, after all." Claudia runs her hand through his hair and kisses the top of his head. "Where were we in the song?"

"I don't want to sing anymore."

"Oh, but we have to," she says. Hopefully the song will calm Stiles and lull him to sleep. "We're in the jeep and we always sing '5, 999 bottles of beer on the wall' when we're in the jeep."

Stiles stared at her for a moment, eyebrows drawn together.

"3, 497 bottles of beer on the wall..."

~~~~~~~~

**JOHN**

He rubs his hand down his face, trying to calm his heart down, trying to focus, trying to drown the sense of dread that's threatening to engulf him. He tries Claudia's cellphone again, but the call goes directly to voicemail, like it has done ever since he got that strange call from Claudia around 10 pm last night.

It's almost eight in the morning and he's spent the entire night looking for his wife and kid.

He ran home after the call to find it empty. With Tara they cruised the entire town searching for them, the entire station out on the look. Only when the diner that serves Stiles' favorite curly fries opened, did they get a lead: they'd dined there and went outside to the playground. Later one of the employees went outside for a smoke and heard Stiles yelling that they were going to Disneyland.

Objectively, he knows they should have gone back to the station to regroup and discuss what could simply be a joke from an eight year-old. But Tara only objected when he said he'd drive and now they're heading south to Anaheim, clinging to the only thread of hope they have.

"The jeep!" Tara shouts from the driver's seat and turns on the siren. John knows that if he wasn't sitting down, he'd have fell on his knees when he sees two heads jumping in the backseat of his wife's stupid powder blue jeep and wave at them.

They reach the jeep just as Stiles and Claudia are climbing out of it, and Tara hasn't even stopped the cruiser properly before John is out of the door and running towards them.

"Stiles!" He crouches down and grabs Stiles around the waist, picking him up and hugging him against his chest. Stiles whimpers and buries his face in John's neck, clutching the jacket around John's shoulders.

"You okay, son? You okay?" he asks, looking at his son and well-aware of how desperate he sounds.

Stiles nods, wiping his eyes and John finally takes a moment to look at his wife. Claudia is shaking off her coat that Stiles dropped when he ran to him, and looking everywhere but at them.

John hugs Stiles once again, before placing him carefully on the ground.

"Hey, buddy," he says, squatting to look at him at eye-level, "why don't you go over to deputy Graeme and ask her about the candy she keeps in the glove compartment? Your mom and I will be right over."

"But you're taking us home, dad, yeah?"

"Of course I am, buddy, don't worry."

He looks as Stiles runs to Tara and climbs into the cruiser with her, safe and looking less scared.

Taking a deep breath to calm his fear, John finally walks over to his wife, who is slumped against the jeep staring at the ground.

"Claudia?" he asks placatingly, voice breaking. "Were you running away and taking our son with you?"

Her eyes finally snap up at him.

"Oh my god, John, no! Never!"

John's shoulders slump and he physically feels relief washing over him, now that he knows his wife doesn't hate him.

"Then why did you do this?" Relief is slowly giving way to anger, as John recalls the long hours of abject panic he lived, for apparently no reason. "I don't understand."

She shifts from foot to foot, looking around, before settling back on the ground.

"Dinner was so much fun and Stiles was so happy," she says, voice small. "I just wanted to keep him happy like that and decided to take him to Disneyland. We were going to call you when your shift ended, so you'd meet us there, but then the jeep ran out of gas and my cellphone's battery died."

John takes a step back and has to breathe deeply several times to keep himself from yelling.

"You decided to take _my_ son on a five hour long roadtrip in the middle of the night, without a proper coat, without fuel, without charging your cellphone?" 'Without telling me' goes unsaid. "What the hell, Claudia?"

"Seemed like a good idea at the time."

John gapes. He really wants to yell, throw his arms up in the air and scream until his voice goes raw, because how could that have ever been a good idea? But Claudia is looking at him with her eyes full of tears, the same huge beautiful eyes Stiles has, and for the most terrifying hours of his life John thought he was never going to see them again.

He steps forward and wraps her in a hug.

"Well, it wasn't," he says, sighing when she hugs him back. "I'm just glad you two are okay."

_________________________________________________________________________

**CLAUDIA**

It's a chilly morning, a hazy veil of fog wrapping the town and filtering the sun, so its light is white, cold and unforgiving. Claudia blinks against the glare, a mild migraine brewing, and turns to the backseat where Stiles is nodding off. It had been hell to pull him out of bed earlier. Not that she can blame him: the school looks particularly menacing in the fog.

"Come on, Stiles," she says softly. "We're here."

Stiles blinks awake, looks outside the window and frowns.

"Where's here?"

"Stiles, come on, you're already late." She looks over at the school gates, a few kids dragging their feet inside, looking as morose as Stiles probably feels. "Get out, please."

"No!"

Claudia can feel the material of the steering wheel creaking with how hard she's grabbing it.

"Either you get out of the car or you'll get in trouble, young man."

"But--"

"Stiles!" She whips around and reaches back to push him towards the door. Why is he being so stubborn? " _Get out of the car now!_ "

He stares at her for a moment, eyes wide, turns his head to the window and gulps, before opening the door and climbing out of the jeep without saying a word.

Claudia drives off immediately. She's feeling a bit guilty for losing her temper like that, but sometimes Stiles can be so difficult. Just the day before he woke her up at dawn, because he couldn't wait to go to school to be with Scott and see Lydia, and today it's like school is hell on earth.

~~~~~~~~

**JOHN**

He raises his head from his papers as Claudia enters the police station. Stiles is sitting at Tara's desk with her, drawing on some scraps of paper. She looks at Claudia and then at John and nods, before picking up a pen to add something to Stiles' drawing.

John takes a deep breath, before walking up to Claudia, grab her arm and drag her to an empty room. He slams the door behind them and walks to the opposite corner of the room, trying to keep as much distance from Claudia as possible. He loves his wife, he does. He loves her just as much as he did the day they got married, but right now? Dammit, right now he hates her, too. He has the image of two complete strangers walking into the station with a terrified Stiles in tow forever scorched into the back of his mind.

"I left him at school," Claudia says.

"Don't."

"We were late, but there were still kids outside when we got there."

"You left him at the cemetery, Claudia!"

Claudia blinks and stares at him.

"What are you talking about?"

"You left him in the cemetery. The only people 'outside' were the ones attending the funeral of a young woman who died last week."

"No, I didn't," she says, and it's disturbing how much she looks like she's saying the truth. "For some reason Stiles didn't want to go to school and he must've run away."

John presses the heel of his hands against his eyes.

"He said that you--"

"Well, he's obviously lying."

John slams his fist on the metal table in the middle of the room, making her jump, but enough is enough.

"Then everyone who was at the cemetery is lying! Like the couple who left their daughter's funeral to come here, because they witnessed a little boy being abandoned by his mother at. A. Fucking. Graveyard." Each word is punctuated by a punch on the table.

"But--"

"No! You know what? Go home, Claudia. Tara had the afternoon off, but she's staying here to keep an eye on Stiles. He'll be here with me until I finish my shift." That said, he opens the door and walks out of the room, leaving Claudia by herself.

"But I left him at school!"

_________________________________________________________________________

**CLAUDIA**

She's feeling tired. She slept well last night, but it obviously wasn't enough to compensate the hellish week of practically not sleeping.

Stiles is making a ruckus in the living room, probably entertained with god knows what, and she can't help but smile. His sneakers skid on the floor, and then there's stomping on the wooden stairs.

"Stiles," she calls. "Don't run up the stairs. You'll hurt yourself."

Sure enough there's a horrible bang followed by a heart-wrenching cry.

" _Stiles!_ " She runs to the foyer and finds Stiles curled up on the floor at the foot of the stairs. "Stiles, oh my god."

"Mommy!" He's clutching his head and there's blood on his forehead. He's crying and she wants so bad to pick him up and make sure he'll be okay, but it was a bad fall.

"Baby, don't move," she says, picking her cellphone and dialing 911, hands shaking. "Let me get help."

_"Nine-one-one, what's your emergency?"_

"Hello? I need an ambulance. My boy fell down--"

_"He fell down?"_

"Down--"

_"Ma'am?"_

Claudia looks at the stairs. The stairs that Stiles fell down. The stairs. But she tries to say the word and only manages a garbled sound.

"There's blood!"

_"Ma'am, what's the address, so I can send an ambulance over?"_

She knows the address. Hell, she's staring at it written down on this month's bills, but the words roll on her tongue and won't get out.

_"Ma'am?"_

"Please, he's eight?"

_"Ma'am, are you all right?"_

Claudia hangs on the phone.

~~~~~~~~

**JOHN**

He should be reading the transcripts on his desk, but John's mind keeps going back to Claudia. She's been erratic, going from wild ideas that come from nowhere, to losing her temper over the smallest things, to talking about stuff that never happened.

Sheriff Crawford's brother is bipolar, and John wonders if she Claudia shouldn't be checked for something like that. He's been meaning to talk to her about it, but something in the back of his mind makes him stop everytime. What if it's not that? What if it's something worse?

His cellphone rings and, speak of the devil, it's Claudia. But when he picks up all he can hear is Claudia and Stiles crying on the other end.

"Claudia?"

_"John!"_

"Claudia, what happened?"

_"He's hurt, John! He's hurt and I can't help him!"_

~~~~~~~~

John slams open the door to his home and follows the crying until he finds Claudia sitting at the end of the stairs, clutching Stiles to her chest.

"Hey, hey," he says, kneeling besides them. Stiles tries to jump to his arms, but Claudia has such a tight grip on him, John has to pry him from her. He runs a hand through Stiles' bloody hair and hisses in sympathy when he sees the large gash in his scalp. "Hey, buddy. Seems like you'll need a few stitches. That's okay, I've had stitches before, too." Stiles clutches John's shoulder, and John's pretty sure he's shaking from fear and not pain. "Honey, what happened?" he asks Claudia.

"He fell down--" She makes a choked up noise in the back of her throat. "He fell down--" She makes the same noise and then points at the stairs.

"He fell down the stairs?"

Claudia nods.

"And then he was bleeding from the-- From the--" She points at her head. "And when I tried to call an ambulance, I couldn't say the address."

"You didn't remember the address?"

"No, I did! I just couldn't _say_ it," she sobs.

John balks, heart breaking at the hurt expression on his wife's face.

"Okay, okay," he says, more to himself than to Claudia, and grabs her hand. "We're going to take Stiles to the hospital, okay? Get him stitches and check if he didn't break anything." He rubs the back of her hand with his thumb. "And once we're there, maybe--" He takes a deep breath and the next words come out like they've been wrenched out of him. "Maybe we should have you checked,too."

Claudia stares at him for a moment and then her face twists, fresh tears falling down, before she slowly nods.

_________________________________________________________________________

**CLAUDIA**

"Stiles, come here!"

Stiles steps into the kitchen slowly.

"What's this?" she asks, waving a dirty plate at him and doesn't let him answer. "Didn't I tell you to soak the plate?"

Stiles takes a step back, looks at the patio door and then back at her.

"I'm sorry."

"Oh, you're sorry? _You're sorry?_ " she yells. "That you forgot, once again, to do something so simple?" His eyes continue to shift from her to the patio door and that's starting to grate on her nerves. "Look at me when I'm talking to you!" She throws the plate at him, wanting to hurt him, wanting him to stop irritating her.

He ducks just in time to avoid the plate aimed at his head, which shatters against the wall behind him. Stiles looks up at her from his crouch on the floor, face pale and chin trembling.

Claudia takes a step forward and he whimpers, scrambling a couple of feet towards the patio door.

And that's when it hits her.

There's a recorder by the telephone, with several messages from John recorded in case there's an emergency and Claudia isn't able to form the words to ask for help. There aren't any knives, scissors, nor anything she can use to hurt herself or Stiles with in the house any longer. She doesn't even have the keys to her home anymore, and the jeep has been parked outside for months.

Stiles has a cellphone now, with numbers he can dial anytime he needs, like the McCalls and the Graemes. Like the Turners next door, who have a futon and a change of Stiles' clothes ready, in case he needs to run away from home.

Because Claudia and John sat down with their nine-year-old son and gave him express permission to _run away from home_ in case he doesn't feel safe.

And that's what he's trying to do now. He's trying to run away to the safety of the Turners' home, because his own home isn't safe anymore. Because that's what this _thing_ eating away Claudia's brain has done to him.

Because that's what Claudia has done to him.

"Stiles," she says softly and he flinches. She raises her hands slowly, palms towards him. "Honey, go to your room, please." At Stiles' confused look she continues. "Go to your room and go play a game in your computer, okay?" Those games take hours, usually. "And when you're done, maybe you should call Mrs. McCall, how about that?"

Stiles nods and slowly walks out of the kitchen with his back to the wall.

Claudia picks up a notepad and a pen and starts writing. But there are so many things she wants to say, so many thoughts running amok in her head, and she doesn't have the time for it. It has to be done now.

She tears off the page with her half-formed words, balls it up and writes one single sentence on the new page.

She goes to the drawer next to the kitchen where her sleeping pills are. Those pills are muscle relaxants strong enough to keep her from getting up in her sleep. Well, the heart and the lungs are muscles, too.

~~~~~~~~

**MELISSA**

"Will you listen to me?" Raph yells, slamming his palm against the sink.

"No, you know why?" Melissa asks, getting up on his face. "I'm tired. I've had it with anything you have to say to me."

Raph opens his mouth to speak, but Melissa holds up a hand when Scott walks into the kitchen. She grips the counter to ground herself, before turning to her son.

"Hey, sweetie." She notices Scott's holding her cellphone. "Watcha you got there?" She holds the cellphone to her ear and on the other side of the line she hears the terrifying and unmistakeable sound of a little boy crying.

"Stiles? Stiles, honey, what's the matter?"

_"My mom won't wake up."_

"What do you mean, honey? Where's your mom?"

 _"She took her sleeping medicine and now she isn't waking up,"_ he says. _"She's in the kitchen, on the floor."_

Oh no.

"Give me a second, honey." Melissa covers the cellphone speaker and turns to Raph. "Go to the Stilinskis' and call an ambulance on the way."

"What?"

"Claudia OD-ed, Raph, go!"

Realization downs on his face and Raph runs to the door, picking his car keys on the way. Scott hugs Melissa's midriff and hides his face on her blouse.

"Stiles, honey, Scott's dad is on his way," she says, running a hand through Scott's hair. "I want you to do me a favor, okay?"

_"Okay."_

"Go to the door and stay there and only open it when Scott's dad arrives. Promise me."

_"I promise."_

"Okay, honey, now I'm going to hang up--"

_"No!"_

"Honey, listen to me: I'm going to hang up, because I need to tell Scott something and then I'm going to drive to your house, okay? You're going to wait for me at the closed door and I'll be there in five minutes, okay?"

 _"Okay,"_ he sniffs.

Melissa hangs up with a heavy heart and squats down to look at Scott at eye-level.

"What's the matter with Stiles' mom?" he asks, eyes welling up.

"Stiles' mom is very sick and I'm going there to help her and Stiles," she says. "But, honey, to do that I have to leave you with Mrs. Hightower next door."

"No! I want to be with Stiles and help him too."

"I know you do, honey." She hugs her wonderful son, knowing full well how much he wants to help. "But trust me when I tell you that this is a thing grown-ups have to deal with. Your friend will need you after and he knows he can count on you, right?"

"Right."

"Let's go, then." She grabs Scott's hand and her purse and walks them both to their neighbors.

"Mrs. Hightower, do you mind taking Scott for the night? I know it's too short notice," Melissa asks her elderly neighbor when she opens the door.

"Of course. It's anything the matter, dear?"

Melissa pauses, wanting to come up with an excuse, but it's not like it matters: Beacon Hills is a small town. Everyone knows about deputy Stilinski's wife and the horrible disease that's going to cut her life short.

"It's Claudia, Mrs. Hightower."

Mrs. Hightower sighs, understanding, and motions Scott to follow her inside.

"Do you want to help me bake those cookies your friend liked so much when you two were here the other day?"

~~~~~~~~

Stiles opens the door, his face dark. Melissa kneels down and holds his face in her hands. His eyes are red and puffy from crying, but the pupils look normal.

"Honey, did you touch your mom's medicine?" Melissa knows, intellectually, that Claudia can't be accountable for what she did, but the mother in her hates her for not having locked herself in her bedroom, away from Stiles' eyes and hands.

Stiles shakes his head.

"Promise?"

He nods.

"Come here." She picks him up. "My, you're getting so big. Soon I won't be able to pick you up anymore."

She walks them to the kitchen, leaving the door open for the ambulance that she can hear in the distance.

She stops before entering the kitchen, taking in the scene before her: Claudia is lying on her back, bile-colored foam drying up on her lips, and staring blankly into the infinity. Raph is kneeling beside her and applying compressions to her chest with force enough to crack her ribs.

He looks up from Claudia's still form and shakes his head at Melissa, but continues with the CPR.

Melissa wants to take his place, tell him that's her job, that she's the one who saves lives, but she knows he knows what he's doing.

Stiles shifts in her arms and tries to look over his shoulder, but Melissa puts a hand on his head and holds it in place, so he won't see what's going on. He needs her more now than Claudia will ever need again.

On the kitchen counter there's a notepad with a single sentence written on it in block letters: _I have to protect him from myself._

_________________________________________________________________________

**STILES**

He knows he was the one who told Barrow to go after Kira. He doesn't know he cut the power line in the hospital or that he sent a shrapnel bomb to the station. But he knows he has done horrible things.

For years Stiles has known why his mother did what she did. His father made sure of it, child psychiatrists told him in soft tones while he played with stupid toys in their office. Melissa sat down with him a couple of times, like all counselors that came before Morrell.

He knows.

But for the first time he _understands_ : he has to protect them from himself.

The End


End file.
